


the end of all things

by kittybenzedrine



Category: Umbrella Academy
Genre: Agender Ben Hargreeves, Blood, Body Horror, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, but very minor body horror, internal injuries, minor spoilers but only if you haven't read the two comics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 19:51:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5715043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittybenzedrine/pseuds/kittybenzedrine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This isn't how they imagined they'd die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the end of all things

Blood fills their mouth, and their vision swims. The wounds littering their bloodstained torso ache and scream with an awful intensity, and each drag of air that they manage to pull in sears through their chest.

 _Mission gone wrong,_ Ben thinks bitterly.

Dr. Cadaver and her awful, stitched together henchman manage to get the jump on them and Space. Space's instructions as they split are extremely unclear, and while dodging machete sized scalpels, two of their tentacles are cut off, and several slices mare their torso. It all burns like hellfire.

Ben manages to get away, sure, but the blood trail to the closet was what gets them caught.

Two of Dr. Cadaver's macabre-looking minions are dragging them away from the scene as fast as they can, further away from Space's frantic shouts of their name. The first name they were given, their number. One of the henchmen says something to the other about a vat of acid, but Ben can't really hear over the blood roaring in their ears.

This isn't how they imagined they'd die.

Ben coughs hard, hard enough than one of the men loses his grip on their skin and drops their upper half. Pain blooms through their head and right shoulder when they hit the concrete, completely blackening their vision for a moment. Ben hears their own pained moaning, faintly, before the blood rushing in their ears cancels the sound out.

They hear the two argue as the men pick them back up, catching something about them being heavy. Ben's 6'4 and weighs somewhere around 250. _Of course_ they're heavy.

The Horror itself, not Ben, has not made a reappearance since two of the tentacles were lopped off. Ben can still feel it though, under his skin, helping them hold onto their last few ounces of life.

"Hey man, come on. Stay awake. Don't fall asleep, man," the one holding their legs says in a low voice, patting them gently on their exposed skin. "Don't go to sleep. You've gotta stay awake, Horror." They barely hear him.

Ben begins to gag, liquid filling their mouth and throat. A stray tentacle wriggles in their throat, attempting to expel it and only manages to suffocate them even more. The man holding under his arms turns Ben's upper half, blood running from their mouth and throat, some dripping from their nose as they cough and choke on a mixture of watery blood and air as the tentabeast retreats.

The three of them stop somewhere, and Ben is laid on the floor as gently as the men can manage. The two promptly strip them down to only their bottoms, tossing their boots and gloves over near what Ben assumes is the acid vat. _Fuck._

Their cape is used to mop as much blood off of them as possible. Ben starts to black out, and no amount of shaking from the henchmen will keep them conscious anymore. The pain has grown too much. Even with all the training they've had, they can no longer ignore it. The men wanted to get them out of there, for some reason, but now they weren't going to live.

This really, really wasn't how they imagined that they would die. They're only 22. They're not ready to go yet, but fate usually doesn't care much about human wants.

 _I promised Klaus I'd come home,_ they think faintly, all sight and sound escaping them while the beast frantically tries to keep them conscious, to no avail. _I want to go home to him._

 

 

 

 

It's the thirty-first birthday of the seven Hargreeves children. Well, for Klaus, it's his 34th, due to the three years spent in the past.

He goes home, to the bunker, long enough to exchange pleasantries with his siblings, see if Vanya remembers him yet (she doesn't), and eat a slice of the cake mom made. He hugs her tight and kisses her cheek, thanking her for a nice birthday.

No one comments when he tucks a bottle of whiskey into one of his bulging pockets, setting the glass bottle on top of his candles. He tracks down his Ouija board and heads outside with nothing more than a wave to his siblings.

Klaus sighs as he sets up his circle of candles, in front of the base of the broken statue of Ben. After he lights each one, he sits in front of his board. He sighs again. Before he puts his hands on the board in front of him, he takes a few long swallows from the bottle of alcohol, so used to the burn that it doesn't hurt him anymore.

"So. It's technically our 31st," Klaus begins, keeping his eyes down and unfixed on anything in particular. "Thus meaning that it's been... Shit, eight and a half years without you. Nearly nine. For me, it's been nearly twelve.

"Christ. That's a long fuckin' time. It's been a real long time. I know everyone misses you. A lot has happened. I don't even really know what to say. Talking to you face to face is a lot easier, but obviously I can't do that." He stops and takes another long drink, willing away the tears that spring to his eyes.

"I still don't think you're dead, but if you are and you happen to be listening, then happy birthday, Ben. I still love you."

 

 

Somewhere down south, in the States, a pale person with pale hair, with a tangle web of deep scars on their abdomen sits back on their couch, after a long day of work.

It's their 31st birthday today.

They sigh and lean back into the cushions, letting out a yawn. Scratch their chest, kick off their work shoes.

The TV comes on, and they watch the news. Drug bust, clean up still continuing in The City. Their achievements at InfoTech, the security company they work for, with them and their boss shown for a moment. Then, a news story about the 31st birthday of the children of the Umbrella Academy. Went over the good all of them did and such.

Ben, though that is no longer their name, smiles as they watch a clip of themself and Klaus being the dynamic duo, when they were about 17.

"Happy birthday," they say softly to the empty room.

**Author's Note:**

> I AM A UA CONSPIRACY THEORIST AND DON'T THINK BEN IS DEAD
> 
> FIGHT ME
> 
> also this is super shitty cause it was a boredom fic


End file.
